In general, a household refrigerator is an appliance with a given storage space for storing food at a lower temperature, consisting of a refrigerator compartment maintaining a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water and a freezer compartment maintaining a temperature below the freezing point of water. Recent higher demand for ice contributes to increasing demand for a refrigerator equipped with an ice maker that can automatically make ice.
The aforementioned ice maker may be installed in the freezer compartment depending on the type of a refrigerator, or in the refrigerator compartment if required.
FIG. 1 shows an example of an ice maker installed in the freezer compartment. The ice maker 100 has an ice storage unit 102 for storing ice as shown in FIG. 1, and the ice stored in the ice storage unit 102 may be dispensed to the outside through an ice dispenser unit in accordance with an external ice dispensing signal. In this case, if more ice than a given amount of ice is dispensed to the outside, information is provided as feedback to enable the ice maker 100 to make ice again, and the new ice may be introduced into the ice storage unit 102.
Meanwhile, the ice maker 100 may be equipped with a full-ice level sensor for measuring a full-ice level of ice stored in the ice storage unit 102. If the full-ice level sensor is implemented as an optical sensor, it is installed on the upper part of the ice storage unit 102 to sense the full-ice level when the ice storage unit 102 is full of ice and light to the optical sensor is thus blocked.
The measurement position of the aforementioned conventional full-ice level sensor, however, is fixed to the uppermost part of the ice storage unit 102 to let the ice maker 100 continue to produce ice until the level reaches the full-ice level. Therefore, for users who do not consume ice frequently or in winter, for example, when there may be less demand for ice, the maximum amount of ice continues to be made and this consumes power to make ice that is unnecessary.